Estimated reading time — 13 minutes

In December of 2015, Marceline Nightingale was declared missing. The lack of evidence, like many other older cases in this town, entices me. Maybe if this one could be solved so could the other ones.

Today I was doing research in Laria town library with my friend Sasha. We both had notebooks open, taking notes while looking at evidence that had been posted for the public online. Sasha also put in a request with the public records and was given a bin of her stuff that wasn’t kept for DNA or considered prominent evidence. “Hey Alice, look at this, her notebook.” Sasha whispered excitedly nearby.

“Really? That wasn’t considered prominent evidence?” I was baffled that we had access to such a thing.

“Apparently not, I don’t think they even read it. How negligent.” She scoffed and put the book on the table in front of us.

I opened the notebook, thinking to myself how she wrote in hard to read cursive. The first few pages were nothing but what Marceline had titled “silly stories” until eventually the line “I need a break from stories for a little while.” showed up. Giving Sasha a sidelong glance and closing my computer to focus on this. Sasha whispered happily “So she did write personal stuff in this, not just silly stories.”

I giggled a bit with her and started to read the first entry aloud just loud enough for the two of us to hear.

“Dear Diary,

Today was weird.

I put my earbuds in and started a new episode of a silly podcast I have been listening to. “Have you ever heard the rumor of the Madam and her children? It is said that she is a seven-foot-tall woman who lures seemingly innocent people into the forest and adopts them as her own. The town calls these missing people the Madam’s children.” The podcast was cut off by the host reading out a sponsorship after the short intro so I chose silence instead today.

“Stupid ads, can’t even listen to a full minute without one now” grumbling into my pillow before pushing myself up.

The day had begun like every other day: wake up, brush my teeth, get dressed, make sure my alibi stayed strong, and go to work, y’know, the usual. Today I was only supposed to see seven patients, which gave me time for some extra research tonight.

Work was never strict on a dress code as long as you were presentable enough to not look like you’re going to bed. I put on a gothic lolita dress, with fleece lined tights, mary jane platforms, put my hair up in a braid, and grabbed my handbag before walking out of the door. The walk was brief, but it didn’t hold the same amount of normalcy as my usual routine did. It felt as if there were 5 pairs of eyes looking at me from every angle, but no one was around, not even someone passing by for a morning walk. I checked behind my shoulder while walking into the psychiatry clinic lobby before closing the door behind me.

I only saw my usual consistent patients today, not much change from all of them other than, thankfully, improvements after taking the medication. Most of my time at the clinic was spent filing paperwork, writing a report card for one of my patients who improved by seeing results, and making sure all medication reports were up to date. Pretty boring of a day if you ask most people, but I seem to enjoy the routine of these parts of my days.

My walk home still felt as off as the walk to work did, this time it was more awkward since there were people around but their eyes felt different from the hypothetical eyes I’m feeling. I walked home quickly, locking the door instantly behind me and closing all of the nearby windows. I took a few deep shaky breaths trying to calm myself down, but it didn’t seem to help as I felt a headache start to form in the back right side of my head. The headache rooted fast but it was nothing more than a soft sore pain. I took tylenol and shrugged it off.

My fascination with the brain is nothing new, it seems so fragile yet incredibly strong at the same time it’s hard to not desire to know its ins and outs. I wonder if it’s true that bad people tend to have brain tumors or the “mad disease”. Though technically that isn’t my job or my direct line of research, I liked to do my own little research as a side project. Usually I would complete this research on my easy days like this, but I find it’s a bad idea to leave my house at the moment. I’ll go tomorrow night instead.”

This entry raised many questions: was she going through psychosis? Why would she have to leave her house for this “special” research? Why was she so scared of being seen?

Sasha and I wrote down notes we got from this entry and flipped onto the next page. The next page wasn’t as fruitful as the last. It was just nonsensical descriptions of people who don’t seem to exist, though one description was not only very specific but it seemed like she knew who it could be. Moving my gaze over at Sasha and she seemed to be perplexed while rewriting some of the descriptions in her notebook. “These are real people, she’s describing people who went missing.” Sasha whispered to me and pointed at the specific description.

The description read “Tall young man, person of color, afro, dressed like a poet” which fit the description of a young man who went missing in 2007. “Maybe if we also look into his case then we can figure out hers” Sasha pointed out.

“You look into Dylan Schmidt, I’ll look through the rest of this notebook.”

As I went through the notebook there were the same descriptions but with times and dates next to them. The vague descriptions would get more and more detailed throughout the pages.

“Tall young man, person of color, afro, dressed like a poet. He wears 3 gold rings on his right hand and I think he may wear glasses.”

“A young woman, maybe a teenager, long black hair, pale, wears comfortable clothes that seem to have stains on them can’t tell what the stains are.”

“White man, wearing a carhartt jacket, jeans and brown boots, he looks like my dad, ginger hair, clean shaven. It looks like he is holding something in his right hand. I can’t identify what the item is though.”

I wrote down notes about my findings, from how she was writing it seemed like she was being stalked, but the police report says she just randomly went missing. There’s only three main descriptions that pop up consistently so it seems like she brushed the others off as “wrong place wrong time” situations, but even their vague descriptions seemed to match missing cold cases. It can be assumed she didn’t know this though since it’s not mentioned at all in her writing. I continue to flip through the pages trying to find something, anything, else. My search would be cut short though when the pages went blank the last page only having a date in the top right corner “2015/12/17” she planned to write in her notebook the day she went missing. I flipped through the rest of the empty pages. At the end of the notebook I found what looked like an address. I quickly wrote it down in my notes and closed the notebook. “Have you found anything that seems similar, Sasha?”

“Yeah, Dylan Schmidt seems to have been going to work fine one day and gone the next, no evidence found, and now considered a cold case.” Sasha exasperatedly sighed.

Putting the notebook aside and standing up to look in the bin. There wasn’t much in there; there was the notebook, a sketchbook, an outdated camera, her wallet, and an unidentified key. I reached in and grabbed the sketchbook then sat back down. The first couple of pages seemed to just be sketches of original characters, until the middle of the sketchbook where a pair of always watching eyes kept returning. She started drawing ghastly figures, only one of them having a firm consistent silhouette. It was a woman, presumably tall, with long black hair. The only feature that wasn’t all black on her silhouette was her eyes; they were unnerving, and it can be presumed she’s wearing a dress. Flipping through a couple more pages this lady was consistent, but then there he was Dylan Schmidt sketched along with the road her house was on. “Sasha, look at this.” Sliding the sketchbook over to her.

“Holy shit. So she was seeing Dylan, but that shouldn’t be possible” she looked at it just as shocked as I was.

We flipped through the next sketchbook pages finding drawings of the other people she described. On my computer I searched up “Missing cold cases in Laria that were considered random disappearances?” and opened the first trustable link to pop up. With a generic list pulled up on my computer screen Sasha would search for images on her computer. We found five people that matched Marceline’s written description but also her drawn ones: Dylan Schmidt, Elizabeth Adler, Jennifer Alkins, Scott Rogers, and Jamie Russell. All of these people disappeared during or before 2007, but in Marceline’s drawing they haven’t aged. Looking over at Sasha “Do you think the investigators went through Marceline’s full search history?”

“I think so, I mean they had nothing else to go off of.” she said it, unsure of it, herself.

While she looked up the ages of the people Marceline had, what we can assume, unknowingly been drawing detail for detail, I worked to see if I could find out if her search history had been publicly posted. No search from her had been posted, only an official public report saying that she had nothing suspicious on her devices. Meaning no searches that could incriminate her or someone else likely no searches on past cold cases. “I found nothing, just says her devices were clean.” She didn’t respond, she just kept staring at her computer.

“Alice, Jennifer Alkins should be 76 today and there is no picture of her in the outfit Marceline drew her in. So if Marceline didn’t do incredible research into what she was said to be wearing when she disappeared then how did she draw Jennifer Alkins?” Sasha froze in place, her breathing was starting to become uneasy, and she used her thumb to scratch at her finger.

“You’re overthinking it, Sasha she was probably just dreaming or heard it in a documentary before this, I mean it seems like she was in a state of psychosis.” trying to calm her down. “I did find an address in the notebook we could check if there’s anything there”

Sasha calmed down a bit and nodded agreeing with me, I don’t think she could manage words. We took pictures of Marceline’s drawings, putting notes on our pictures of who the person was. Five people who had been missing for years, some for decades, and yet here they were depicted head to toe from someone who presumably didn’t know about them.

After sitting with the information for a minute I put the notebook and sketchbook back into the bin, and got ready to go.

We first drove back to the public records office. While Sasha returned the bin, I pulled up the address on the GPS on my phone. The address wasn’t too far away from our current location, from what I could tell it was a small house by the forest edge.

The drive was relatively quiet with only the soft hum of the car’s engine. The house had an unsettling vibe to it, but we pulled into the empty driveway anyways. The house door was already unlocked, which to us was weird, the door wasn’t creaky at all and the smell of fresh disinfectant stung. “Sasha, does this seem weird to you?” I looked timidly at the door.

“Yeah I don’t know if we should go in, Alice” she was trembling, I could almost hear her teeth clattering.

“What if we find something that could tell us where Marceline could’ve possibly gone? We can keep the police on speed dial and if we see anything bad we bolt” holding my hands up while shrugging a bit trying my hardest to look calm.

She only nodded again in return. When we entered the home the disinfectant smell only got stronger. The house was overall tidy and unalarming. Sasha and I walked close together, through the front door we entered the living room. The first thing I spotted was a dirty notebook and an old folded piece of paper laying on the coffee table. Sasha took her phone out and took pictures, while I approached and first investigated the folded sheet of paper. The paper was slightly yellowed over time, it was a map of the town with the copyright year of 2015. The map was adorned with small colored dots with lines attaching the dots, Sasha snapped a picture of the map from over my shoulder. The dots were all labelled with numbers, it looks like they were getting close to her main residence, it was probably a map of the missing people getting closer to her. After Sasha snapped a picture of it I returned the map to its original spot and opened the notebook. The first entry was wildly different from the notebook public records gave us. Shakily reading aloud for Sasha to hear.

“Entry #1,

The subject for today was a man named Henry Hewitt. One of my patients, who shall not be named, was physically assaulted by him for years and the police did nothing about it. My patient says that if it were no longer illegal he would’ve immediately had her lobotomized. Henry was a man who thought if a woman wasn’t submissive and normal that she needed to be “fixed”. So I took it into my own hands to fix him.

I can now see why he so desperately needed women to be submissive to his beatings the moment I fought him back he folded like a cheap plastic chair. For that I gave him the mercy of living on.

If you cannot tell I lobotomized Henry Hewitt, he is actually responding quite well to the procedure. He is up, moving, and happy to say that he went for a walk and fell due to the patchy sidewalk. Thankfully, since I gave him mercy, I had very little to clean up.

Overall I would say this first test subject was a success.”

I shakily flipped to the next page until slamming it closed and throwing it back onto the table after seeing something much worse. My breath felt heavy as I felt eyes on me, wildly looking around panicked and now holding onto Sasha’s hand as tight as I possibly could. That’s when I saw it, right there so shamelessly out in the open, an ice pick on the nearby book shelf. “Sasha we need to go!”

Sasha didn’t move, why didn’t Sasha move? Looking towards the door there she was, Marceline standing there holding an ice pick, but she wasn’t solid. It was as if she was a gas, she seemed so real but her hair was rippling away like lava in a lava lamp. I pressed the speed dial button on my phone and tried to be as still as possible blinking rapidly. This couldn’t be real, this creature couldn’t be real.

After blinking for what felt like a million times Sasha yanked my hand and we ran to her car. In a quick thought I had grabbed the notebook back off the table and sprinted out the door with Sasha. Marceline had disappeared for a brief enough moment for us to run but she was quickly behind us again. We didn’t look back, we just got into the car and locked it immediately. Once in the car I finally spoke to the 911 call operator. I spoke rapidly, tripping over my words and unable to make a clear sentence all while Sasha drove straight to the police station. “Hello?! This is Alice Vincerian, me and my friend were being stupid and went into this creepy house and we found evidence about Dr. Marceline Nightingale! She’s not innocent! I have her second notebook!”

“Calm down ma’am, where are you now?” The operator was so calm I can’t understand how she’s so calm.

I was practically choking over my words “we’re driving to the police station-” I was cut off by the car screeching as Sasha swerved off the road.

We were both screaming and crying as Sasha fought to take control of the car. When we finally stopped moving the operator was asking if everything was ok over and over again.

The car was on its side. My phone was on the driver’s side window along with the notebook, which had fallen open. It opened to one of the pages that had a picture of someone slumped against a wall, their skull open as Marceline cut the brain stem.

On the road was a fully solid Marceline, she looked pissed holding both ice picks now and running towards the car. Sasha had been knocked out from impact, my seatbelt had locked. I was panicking trying to break the seatbelt and wake Sasha up. The operator alerted me that she was sending an officer to our current location. Everything was moving faster than my breathing, before my brain could catch up Marceline had broken my door open.

I shut my eyes tight and braced for the worst, but nothing came.

After what felt like an hour I heard sirens blaring, I opened my eyes and immediately looked down at Sasha. She was still breathing, which calmed me down a little. The seatbelt felt agonizingly tight against my chest; it made it hard to focus.

The notebook was gone, I immediately looked out my open door and saw her, Marceline, that creature, I don’t know what it is anymore. There she was though, standing at the forest edge smiling holding the notebook up as if she was teasing me. Before I could see anything else an officer came up to the car and immediately started asking questions.

“Hello ma’am, can you hear and see me? Can you tell us what happened? Are you aware of any injuries?”

I couldn’t respond with words, just sniffled and shook my head after the injury question. I loosely heard the officer call for an ambulance and for back up. When a second officer arrived they worked to cut my seatbelt without me falling on Sasha, who was still unconscious. Everything seemed to move so quickly. One moment I was panicking in the car, the next I’m sitting on the side of the road while they got my friend out of the car.

I was shaking tears streaming down my cheeks, looking back at the forest edge again. She was gone, I couldn’t tell if I was relieved or even more scared. I peered over at them lifting Sasha out of the car, thankfully she had regained consciousness.

I wanted to sigh in relief but I couldn’t, it felt as if there were a thousand pairs of eyes on me.

The officers questioned us both again before finally getting an answer to the question, “Why didthe crash occur?” Sasha was trembling and rubbing her palm against her forearm. “There was a woman in the road, so I swerved but I lost control of the car.”

The following days were a blur, we were told that since the police found no evidence that we probably just imagined it. It was like I was losing my mind, like if I went back to the house and found something to show them I was right they would believe me. Sasha stopped me from going though, we were both staying in my house for the time being.

We were both scared to leave the house, Sasha and I both felt like we were being watched from all angles when we did leave. Today we were sitting on the couch watching a show cuddled up together when a note was slid under the front door. I got up and picked up the note then quickly returned to the couch unfolding the piece of paper. There were tons of eyes drawn on the paper and taped to the bottom of the paper were two small black pills with smiley faces drawn under them. Shakily taking a deep breath then starting to read the letter aloud.

“Dear Alice and Sasha,

The Madam knows you saw us, She would like to give you mercy though. The Madam commends your pure curious intentions, so she wishes to adopt you. You’ll be free from your mundane daily life, free from people not listening to you, free to do what you want all you have to do is take those pills. The pills contain part of the Madam’s hair, we all consumed her in some way to become what we are now.

The Madam only asks you to do a few simple favors for her every once in a while. We cannot wait to meet you two. Please accept her mercy.

Sincerely Doctor Marceline Nightingale.”

I looked at Sasha, then slowly turned toward the window. Marceline was standing there waiting.

Sasha tapped my shoulder and pointed to the other window where Dylan Schmidt was standing. We looked at every window; they were all here: Jennifer Alkins, Scott Rogers, Jamie Russell, and Elizabeth Adler standing in every window except one.

One window in the middle of all of them was empty, but the more we hesitated the more we heard a ringing noise.

The noise kept getting higher and higher in pitch, starting to give us headaches. I closed my eyes grimacing for a quick moment before looking back up at the once empty window. The Madam was standing there making eye contact with me. I looked at Sasha, both of us grimacing from the migraine we were now enduring. Wordlessly we made an agreement that this wasn’t our choice at all. We each grabbed a pill and swallowed them at the same time. After that the whole world went dark.

A couple of days have passed now, we lived in a new home in the woods. I don’t know what I am anymore, other than just the Madam’s child now. Sasha came up to me giggling showing me a news report on her phone “Look at that, Alice. They finally declared us missing!”

Credit: BattieRattie